


Violent lullabies.

by Luna_sharp618



Series: Hazbin Hotel Ficlets [5]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Alastor is just a weird child, Gen, Heavily Implied Child Abuse, Heavily implied domestic abuse, Poverty, Violence, Violins, but we must protect him, implied alcohol abuse, suicial thoughts, thoughts of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 12:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18388373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna_sharp618/pseuds/Luna_sharp618
Summary: Alastor finds a way to pass the time while a war rages below his feet.





	Violent lullabies.

They’re fighting again. Mother and father. 

The house is shuddering in terror as it it caught between their thunderous rage, quaking and cracking as they stamp and kick and shout about something so stupidly human. She is screaming and he is throwing yet another bottle to the wall, or the ground, or her. And their bastard child sits, not fazed at all, upon the rickety window sill of his narrow bedroom, pretending that they are dancing below the floorboards like those princes and princesses from the picture shows he adores so much. 

He is perched carelessly upon his woodworm feasted window, looking out into the endless expanse of bayou and fog that shrouds it. The birds sing to him a mournful song of a poached loved-one or a child fallen from their protective nest. He looks to the ground. 

The far, far ground. 

So out of reach but so quick to access. 

An unnamed feeling sweeps through him. Twisting his stomach into multiple knots as fear and uncertainty mix together in a sickening concoction that bubbles up beneath his skin. 

If he jumped would he be alive to really feel the impact? Would he break his neck? Or just a leg? Would it feel so unbearably painful that he would weep for days like a wounded mongrel, begging for release of his pitiful existence? Or would it provide such overwhelming ecstasy that he would giggle and laugh and chortle ‘til he chokes on his own mad cackling such as a bedlam patient drowning in their own seizure drawn vomit and bile. 

His heart clamps with the powerful need to find out- though for what outcome, he can't decide. 

A coyote screams in the distance, startling him from this hysteria bound thoughts, unsettling him from the derelict seat he has decided to perch himself upon. Out there, in the foggy unknown, a pack of ravenous scavengers warble a forlorn chant of starving anguish. They bellow liken to a gaggle of tittering altar boys and repenting church goers, much like his own mother, into the darkening night. 

Below him, the war still rages, though verbalised upset has transformed into pained grunts and yelps as fists connect to tender flesh. But he refuses to think about it. 

What good what that do? 

He can't be the wedge to part them, as he knows from unhappy experience. Subconsciously he runs his hand tenderly across his wrist, mapping out the odd angles of his ulnar with soured memories and a bitter taste soaking his pallet. 

No. Going down to that shitshow would most definitely end unfavourably for all. Phantom pain crosses his goose-pimpled flesh akin to lightning forking across a tempest swept sky at the mere thought of delving down to the level of such unpredictable anger. 

So one would then assume going up must be leagues safer, naturally.

Because upon the roof is where things are hidden. Precious things. Things that no one else could possibly find or touch or taint with their filthy touch because they have been so expertly hoarded away by his ingenious 12-year-old brain. 

So to the roof he climbs. 

Practise being the only safety net to ease his jumped up nerves as he shakily balances upon the rotten beam, grasping the rickety guttering and hauling his unsettlingly light body up to the shingles of slate. With memorised aplomb he dances across the roof tiles like some sort of sinister fae creature of lore, mischievously stalking the roof to steal away any deviant souls for selfish pleasure. 

God knows the house below is a breeding ground for such malevolence. 

He tiptoes three paces to the right, stretches to reach to the one spot not dissolved by the damp and mould, and then finally to the northern side of the decrepit chimney, eyeing his treasure trove with genuine happiness- nothing like that Cheshire-cat grin he parades around. 

Wedged under a loose collection of structure boards and slate tiles is his prize. Jumbled together are the most precious objects a young boy could hoard like a taciturn dragon. Among the coveted treasure is a raggedy old doll, an item saved from the drunken clutches of his estranged parents from his early years of life- how childish. 

He should throw it from this very roof. Chuck it down to the scavenging coyotes and hissing gators to play with. It’s loose black stitch eyes glare up at him with an empty gaze, almost daring him to throw away one of the only items salvaged from his infancy. It should make him furious. This mundane stirring of such human emotions is simply appalling and should turn his stomach with unbridled rage over being anything like them. 

But out here, in the pallid moonlight, he is alone. No one is around to see this slip of his angelic facade, so he allows the doll to stay- it’s not like anyone will ever find it here in his secluded inventory. He averts his gaze from the doll’s blind stare, shaking the abborehent emotions from his mind. 

That is when he spots it.

Nestled down amongst the cache of adolescent toys, stolen coins and other items no boy his age should own, but that is for another story. Right now, in this moment, he has another prize in his sights. 

It’s a violin- or rather a fiddle. It is small and awkward, with its neck a little bit too long and horsehair strings frayed in places of excessive plucking in times of repulsive nervousness. The varnish upon the chin placement is tacky and worn to the groove of his sharp jaw, with a few bloody fingerprints speckled across its hardwood body from the desperate times he seeked out its company. 

It was a gift, a rare commodity to his relatively deprived adolescence, presented to him from a dying man that slept in the streets and played only for whiskey. He was a kindly soul, not long for the world when he grasped the child by the arm and with trembling hands pushed the instrument to him, raspily wheezing out a request to take good care of it. 

He doesn't know why exactly, but he respected that wish with every fibre of his frail body- running straight home to stash it away from the roaring beasts that begin to calm their rage below his very feet. 

Tenderly he plucks the fiddle from its idle langer among the jumbled oddities, and clutches it to his breast, holding it like a mother to her child. Well no- not in his experience, it is an embrace more so to his mother clutching a vodka bottle. 

His fingers pick instinctively at the strings to ease his growing discomfort with its tuneful humming. A soft lullaby to the moon and its shadowy followers as hours of finger braking hard work to learn washes over him with these few sweet notes. 

He cannot however allow himself to be lost is its devilish croon. He cannot give into such human temptations under the judgemental gaze of the moon and its cannibalistic creatures. His plucking slows to an idle strum as he listens to the ghostly silence below, as once raging torrents settle to an eerie calm. His heart squeezes with discontent. 

Their attention will be shifting soon and they’ll remember that another person should be among them. That’s when tensions will begin to run high once more. 

Forlornly he places the instrument back to its coveted trove, snugging it up against his other forbidden treasures akin to what actresses do to their faux children in the wonderful stories of cinema, tucking them into bed with such care. The idea of which is so foreign to him. 

With a final despondent glance to his precious items he slinks back across the decrepit roof to his bedroom window, hopeful that rest will come easy to him under the moons motherly glow.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inpsired by the stunning art of Tartsy_891 on Instagram of Alastor playing a violin, so I took the idea nd ran with it. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hoped you enjoyed and please be sure to leave a comment and a kudos because it will mean the world to me💜💜💜


End file.
